About the General Register Office

The General Register Office (Oifig An Ard-Chláraitheora) is the central civil repository for records relating to births, stillbirths, deaths, marriages, civil partnerships and adoptions in Ireland.

The General Register Office (GRO) operates under the aegis of the Department of Social Protection and has responsibility for the administration of the Civil Registration Service in Ireland. Our office is located at:

The Registrar General is responsible for managing and controlling the Civil Registration system in Ireland. The Health Service Executive (HSE) is responsible for the day-to-day delivery of the Civil Registration Service through a network of local civil registration offices across the State.

We operate a research facility at Werburgh Street, Dublin 8, D08 E277 where members of the public, involved in family research, may search the indexes to the registers held by GRO and purchase photocopies of entries in the registers.

Certificates of birth, death, marriage, civil partnership or stillbirth can be obtained from the General Register Office, from local civil register offices or online.

Access all annual reports from the General Register Office.

The General Register Office, (Oifig an Ard-Chláraitheora) is located at Government Offices, Convent Road, Roscommon, Co. Roscommon. In addition to the records maintained at the family research facility in the Werburgh Street, Dublin 8, D08 E277 indexes to the following registers of life events are maintained solely at Roscommon.

These include:

• births at sea of children, one of whose parents was born on the island of Ireland between 1 January 1864 and 31 December 1921
• births at sea of Children, one of whose parents was born in Ireland after 1921
• deaths at sea of persons born on the island of Ireland between 1 January 1864 and 31 December 1921 and of persons born in Ireland after 1921
• births of children of Irish parents, certified by British Consuls abroad, between 1 January 1864 and 31 December 1921
• deaths of Irish-born persons, certified by British Consuls abroad, between 1 January 1864 and 31 December 1921
• marriages celebrated in Dublin by the late Rev. J F G Schulze, Minister of the German Protestant Church, Poolbeg Street, Dublin, from 1806 to 1837 inclusive
• births, deaths and marriages registered pursuant to the provisions of the (Army) Act, 1879
• births and deaths registered pursuant to the provisions of the Defence (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, 1960
• certain births and deaths occurring outside the State (Pursuant to the provisions of The Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act, 1972, Sec. 4)
• certain Lourdes Marriages (Pursuant to the provisions of the Marriages Act, 1972, Sec.2)
• stillbirths registered in Ireland from 1 January 1995 (certified copies available to parents only)
• deaths of Irish officers and enlisted persons killed in action or who died while serving abroad in The Great War (WW1) 1914 - 1919
• death returns relating to the South African War (1899 – 1902) in so far as they relate to Irish subjects

To request a certificate from these records please go to our certificate application page.